Dougal Sutherland: The impact of parenting on your sense of disgust

Disgust is a basic human emotion, probably designed to keep us safe and well as it makes us avoid icky things.  

Yet as a parent of a baby we are constantly exposed to disgusting things – known officially as “effluvia” (think anything that flows out of a baby). It would make sense that constant exposure to baby ones, twos, and vomit would have some impact on our sense of disgust, otherwise we probably wouldn’t ever get near them!  

New research compared parents to non-parents and showed them images of disgusting images. It found that non-parents looked away from these much more quickly than parents. This suggests that parents get inoculated against disgust, as looking away quickly is a sign of being grossed out.  

But the impact on parents only occurred after babies had started to wean. Also, parents who had older kids and who also had a newborn milk-fed only baby showed the same disgust response as non-parents.  

So what might be going on?  

It may be that parents’ sense of disgust is present with newborn babies in order to help keep them safe – newborns are obviously particularly sensitive to infection and so it makes sense that their parents might stay highly attuned to disgusting things that might harm their babies.  

Then as babies grow into toddlers, their “outputs” change to being more adult-like (think of the difference between a milk-fed baby nappy and the nappy of a baby who has started solids) parents disgust gets blunted, probably through repeatedly being in contact with these outputs.  

But, it seems that the inoculation against disgust is only a time limited thing as it re-emerges for parents as their kids grow up – this would make sense if we think of disgust as a core emotional response that is designed to keep us away from stuff that might make us sick.  

I’m sure this reflects many parents’ experience of getting used to dirty nappies and cleaning up after a child’s been sick and maybe why it’s a bit more difficult to get back into it as a grandparent (speaking from experience). 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
A Google Sutherland from Umbrella well Being is with us
this morning, did I doogle? Hang on? I think hello?
Doggle ill forget you?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hello? Hello?

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yeah you? Good morning?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Thanks? Yes, good morning, thank you. They're a little damp
here in Wellington. Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, yeah, I think I'm not sure if you're playing
a trip to the Carpy Coast this morning, if you're
you know, i know, thinking about lunch and patapado or something,
it might be just for a little bit of Ye.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yes, it looks like it's just just a bit north
of the city.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Is really hitting it hard, so we're luckily enoughter It
was certainly raining quite heavily before, but nothing like.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
That pad up there. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I think
we'll just batten down the hatches for today.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Dad's in Golden Bay, of course, which is the top
of the South Island. But you know, if you ever
look at a map, you realize that actually they're kind
of you know, that one or two Carpity Coast kind
of area Golden Bay. It's all a straight line, you said.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
The wind foul Yeah, anyway, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, and speaking of disgust this morning, you look at
the impact of being a parent on your sense of
disgust and yes, so this could not be more timely
from a personal.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Yes, I thought of you when I when I read this,
I thought, oh, this will be one to talk to
Jack about. So, I mean, I think it's good to
start from the basics and in terms of what is
what's the reason for disgust, And it seems to be
it's a pretty fundamental human reaction or emotional response, and
probably if you think about it, it's just designed to

(01:42):
keep us safe. We keep away from icky, yucky things
because they're probably not very not very healthy for us.
So so that's the you know, that's the that's the
starting point, really is that we have we have discussed
a sense of disgust for a reason.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, right, Okay, it's an entirely rational kind of response
to things.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah. But so you've got some new research for us though,
that is comparing the sense of discussing parents versus non parents.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
So, as as you know, you're right in the thick
of it at the moment, and you know, those of
us who are parents have all been there we've you
have a you have a baby, and you are involved
with things that you know that that are pretty disgusting.
The official terms that for things that flow out of
a body is effluvia, So so that's sort of you know,

(02:35):
ones and twos and and spews as well from a baby.
And so you were forced into this position where you
are confronted with this icky material. So what they did
in the study was they they exposed parents and non
parents to basically pictures of disgusting things, and they found
that the non parents looked away much more quickly from

(02:56):
these images. And that's generally interpreted to be, you know,
a sense of disgust kicking in is that you turn
away from it. So non parents had had a much
lower threshold let's say that that than parents. But there's
a bit of a kicker because that kind of makes
pretty good sense. I think anybody that's changed at least
one nappy in their lifetime can relate to that.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
But but well, there's two kickers.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
I think firstly, the sense that the getting turned off,
oh no, sorry, that that the the yeah, getting turned
off discussed, so we're getting that turned down doesn't actually
kick in for parents until their child has started eating
solid food. So when the when the child is really
little and milk feed predominant or exclusively, that they still

(03:42):
have the same disgust response as non parents. But it's
not till they're starting on solid foods that that parents
start to be immunized, if you like, against the sense
of disgust.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
And that probably I mean, yeah, yeah, this is directly
nappy related, doesn't that. I mean, like, yeah, the moment
when your kids on when your kids on milk, yeah,
I mean, no big deal. When good moves to move
to solid things change.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yes, yeah, that's right, And that's the kind of that's
one of the ideas behind them. That the finding is
that probably you you you know that that as babies
got into toddlers and onwards into childhood, there iffluent becomes
much more similar to to an adult and so you
actually need to inoculate yourself if you're going to deal

(04:30):
with it. So that does make some sense. The other
the other finding was at the other end of the scale.
It looks like as as parents or as children get older,
parents lose their inoculation, they become re exposed to discussed against,
which is why and I can say this, you know
as a grandparent now with with a sixteen month old,

(04:52):
that when when there is un happy to change, I'm
not putting my hand up to rush forward.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
And do that anymore. Whereas for my own kids it
was just like, oh, well, you know, it's just part
of the course. Enough we go.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
But so you get resensitized to your to your disgusted response,
which again I think highlights how fundamental it is to
keeping us sort of safe. Yeah, because it's kind of
the body saying, hey, you actually need to have this.
You want to be disgusted by things in a way
because it probably keeps you sack.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
See.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
I wonder though, if it's a cause and effecting is
the reason that parents are less disgusted during that kind
of key window. Is that just because they are exposed
to it way more? Whereas if you're coming in now
and you're changing an happy for a sixteen month or
maybe you're doing it, you know, once every month or something, Yeah,
not nearly as not nearly as regularly as sixteen months. Odds, parents,

(05:46):
you know what I mean, Like it's it's a kind
of a causation versus.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, well yeah, habituation.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
I really think directly recall.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
You know, you refer to that as when you become
used to something that you previously couldn't tolerate, And I
agree it's probably that's probably a part of it.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
That there is that that that.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
You know, getting having to get used to it as
a part of sort of suppressing it at least at
least for a time. And as you get you know,
as you're not used to it anymore, your sense of
disgust comes back.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
It shows how strong I think that sense of disgust
probably is.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah. But the other other thing I would add, and
you know, on a personal note, is that some people,
not not me, but perhaps you know, other people in
my household perhaps never get over that sense of disgust.
My wife has this really strong sensitive reflex, so it
doesn't actually take much for her to for that sense
of disgust to return for her. So it was always

(06:43):
me that was cleaning up the baby or a really
sticky situation.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
You know, we're gonna have to get on for a
rite of reply here. She's going to probably contease some
of those facts.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Oh no, I don't think she would know. She would
gladly put her hand up and say, you know, that
was me.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
So the rationale was, if you don't clean it up,
then you'll be cleaning up the baby's vomit and mine
as well. Right yeah, so it.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Was like, OK, I think that it was just a
more effective why.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah fair cool. That is so interesting. Thank you very
much for being us that better resis that really is fascinating.
And stay dry today. You do your best anyway, Dougal Sutherland, he's,
of course, a clinical psychologist with Umbrella Wellbeing.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio